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Business Will Change the World, chapter 2

Business is the most powerful force shaping the world. I don’t often use superlatives like ‘biggest,’ ‘best,’ or ‘most powerful,’ because they are usually wrong. But today I’ll make three assertions, and they will all be superlative. Although these can’t be definitively proven, there is evidence by the freighter-load to back them up, and it’s headed your way.

Assertions:1 – Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.2 – Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.3 – Your business decisions are the most impactful part of your life.

Assertion # 1: Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.

Perhaps the biggest change in human culture since the advent of agriculture is happening right now – billions of people are moving from rural lands to cities, following the promise of prosperity offered by business. In Africa and Asia 1 Million people per week are showing up in cities, looking for a future. As people move off the farms and grazing lands that used to sustain them, they become consumers. Business’s influence in the world grows with every new family that arrives on the outskirts of a city.

Some of business’s other accomplishments: The percentage of the world population living in extreme poverty has dropped by half since the early 80s. The average person’s income in the world today is 50x more than it was in the late 1700s, at the kickoff of the Industrial (i.e. Business) Revolution, and that’s adjusted for inflation. Today there are over 1 billion cars on the roads. There are over 1 billion computers running Microsoft Windows. There are over 1 billion people using the Internet.

Maybe bigger, we’re changing the composition of earth’s atmosphere, and the huge majority of that change comes from business – even the gases attributed to cattle are largely from industrial (i.e. business) farms. With me now? Let’s move on.

Assertion # 2: Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.

Look around you right now. How many of the things that you see were made by a business? …